Planet of the Apes (TV Series)
Cast Starring * Ron Harper as Alan Virdon * James Naughton as Peter Burke * Roddy McDowall as Galen Also starring * Booth Colman as Doctor Zaius * Mark Lenard as General Urko Synopsis Episodes (Aired) * Escape from Tomorrow * The Gladiators * The Trap * The Good Seeds * The Legacy * Tomorrow's Tide * The Surgeon * The Deception * The Horse Race * The Interrogation * The Tyrant * The Cure * The Liberator * Up Above the World So High Episodes (Unfilmed) * Episode One * Episode Two * Hostage * A Fallen God * The Trek * Freedom Road * The Mine * The Trial Notes “The Liberator” never aired in the United States during the series’ initial run, though it did run in Europe and was eventually syndicated on Sci-Fi Channel and other networks in the 1990s. The scripts to “Hostage” and “A Fallen God” are available online at Hunter Goatley’s Planet of the Apes Archive; synopsis of the other four unfilmed episodes were included in the series bible, reprinted in Simian Scrolls issue #12. Rod Serling wrote two pilot scripts (“Episode One” and “Episode Two”) that greatly differed from the aired versions. Ten episodes were re-edited into telefilms, with newly produced framing sequences featuring Roddy McDowall as Galen. These framing sequences were not included on the TV series’ DVD release, but can be viewed online at Kassidy Rae’s Planet of the Apes: The Television Series website. An animated version of this series was briefly discussed in the 1980s but never produced; a concept drawing by artist Jack Kirby, reproduced in The Jack Kirby Collector and later in Simian Scrolls #6, shows that it would have featured Virdon and Burke, along with a female “blonde companion of astronauts” and Toomak, a “human slave boy.” (Information taken from Timeline of the Planet of the Apes: The Definitive Chronology, by Rich Handley.) Behind the Scenes An 'Apes' television series was planned as early as 1971, around the time of Escape from the Planet of the Apes. The continued success of the films delayed any TV series until after the fifth movie. An undated concept for a TV series was prepared. This concept outlined two human astronaut characters - Alan Virdon and Stan Kovak - who crash-land on the Planet of Apes while on a routine reconnaissance flight. Their personalities are already set out as they will be seen in the filmed series. Their adversaries are Ursus the gorilla, who wants the astronauts killed, and Zaius who wants to question them and learn from them. Galen the chimpanzee is their only ape friend as they try to evade capture. The magnetic disc holding their flight information is already a central part of the plot, and the planet is described in some detail with three zones: the ape city where humans are servants and slaves, a rural zone where ape and human farmers live uneasily side-by-side, and a Forbidden Zone around the ancient cities inhabited by rebellious humans. Quite why they wanted to re-introduce Ursus and Zaius, who's deaths had already been shown in Beneath the Planet of the Apes, is unclear, given that at this point the project was still controlled by Arthur P. Jacobs, who was careful to maintain a certain amount of continuity through the movie series (though not without many slip-ups). At some point, Rod Serling wrote a two-part script for episode one of a TV series. His script was a peculiar mixture of the TV concept, a very early script written by him for the original movie, and the plot of the second movie. It is significantly different to the filmed episode, although it does set up the series scenario in line with the concept, and some of the ideas were carried over into Art Wallace's script for "Escape from Tomorrow". The plot concerned Virdon and Kovak landing on a mysterious planet after a period of suspended animation (Kovak: "To age four weeks...while travelling almost six years...and to know that nothing we've left behind will be the same when we return...if we return"). The reason - to rescue or find a crew of missing astronauts (Virdon: "Somewhere - out there - are Taylor, Thomas, LaFever and Bengsten - or their remains. We're going to find them...or finish an epitaph for them." Here, the story begins to mimic that of Beneath the Planet of the Apes, while the names recall earlier ideas of Serling's: George Taylor is, of course from the first movie; John Thomas was the name of the central character in Serling's early draft script, subsequently changed to Taylor; Paul LaFever was also in the early script, the character later became John Landon - the other astronauts on that mission were Dodge and the deceased Blake). The continuity of this story is somewhat confusing, it's almost a sequal to his first script, which was revised heavily for the movie, rather than tying-in with any of the actual movies. They have landed near a beach, and there, they find fragments of metal which they recognise as parts of Taylor's ship. Kovak: "Then where are we?" Virdon: "Roughly where we thought we'd be. In the Constellation Casseiopeia. Right on the border of the Milky Way" Kovak: "If they survived this crash...they sure as hell could have survived this air." That night Virdon explores the area and discovers "four makeshift wooden crosses. From one of them hangs an astronaut's helmet...the worn, weathered, almost obliterated name on the helmet...reads 'Taylor'." They exhume the bodies: (1) male, caucasian, age approximately 31, (gunshot) most likely; (2) male, caucasian, age 28 to 30, same cause of death; (3) male, caucasian, age approximately 23, broken neck; (4) female. Virdon: "There were no females on that crew." They are the bones of an ape. Virdon: "I'd like to find that other crew member - whichever one he is. God knows, I wouldn't want to leave him here alive." An clothed ape is watching them, Kovak shoots him in the neck. They bandage the injured ape and go to search for the remaining crew-member. On their return they discover the ship has been ransacked. As they are about to kill the ape, he suddenly speaks - "My name is Galen." He tells them, "The ship arrived with four 'men'. When that first ship landed from the stars, the four men who stepped out threatened to change who was the hunter and who was the prey. They were killed by our Security Police." Virdon: "There are three human skeletons down there, the fourth is an ape." Galen: "Her name was Zira. She was helping them to escape. As to the other astronaut, best you forget him." Virdon: "Why?" Galen: "He's dead." Captured while trying to find tools and spare parts in the ape city to repair their damaged ship, they are taken before the ape assembly. Mr Zendee (an ape) : "They represent a higher plane of species - not unlike the four individuals who came into our midst some time ago - whose deaths occured without the sanction of this body." Ursus: "Whose deaths, I may interject, occured while the animals were violently resisting all attempts on our part to place them in custody." Zaius: "You knew...that these space travellers offer a link to our own history." "(They) have moved ahead in time, as did Commander Taylor and his crew." At this point, Zaius organises their release on the condition that they leave and return to their own time. He is shot by Ursus and his gorillas as the other three escape. They travel to a Forbidden Zone and find they are in New York. The second part of Serling's episode is largely taken up with a trial, mirroring the events of the first movie. Renegade humans want to execute Galen and Zonda, the fifteen-year-old, strong but simple son of Ursus, who has been captured while trying to kill the fugitives. Virdon and Kovak reason with the humans until they are all allowed to go free, having all earned a grudging respect for each other (this aspect of the story is reminiscent of the 'Malibu Graphics' character, Grunt, the giant son of gorilla General Ollo, who sides with the humans against his father). The earliest dated TV script is for an unfilmed episode 'A Fallen God', from March 2, 1973. This and other early TV scripts follow on from the concept and feature Virdon, Kovak (or 'Ed Rowak') and Galen evading Ursus (or 'Urso') and Zaius, before Wallace's final re-write for episode one (July 1974) introduced the names 'Burke' and 'Urko' along with a new story. While Serling's contribution hasn't been acknowledged (unlike his work on the movie script), the concept of a previous astronaut crew survived into Wallace's script (Urko: "Another ship, Zaius?! It's hard to believe." Zaius: "More than ten years ago, another such ship landed. Humans. They said they were from Earth...but from another time period...long ago." Urko: "But the danger was eliminated. They were killed." Zaius: "Before they could be questioned.").This plot device isn't explored further in the series, although it might have been had the series continued. Another plot device introduced by Wallace was the hint that there may be more, unconnected, advanced humans on the planet (Virdon: "Maybe...just maybe...the humans that built that grenade are still on Earth, and they have the knowledge to..." Burke: "to do what? Build a spaceship? And a computer?" Virdon: "Where did you get this (grenade)?" Zaius: "A human. He didn't live long enough to tell me his name. That human was caught trying to sneak into the city. And yes, I had him killed."). Again, this may have had some significance as the series developed.Hunter's Planet of the Apes Scripts Archive Trivia External links * Kassidy Rae's Planet of the Apes: The Television Series Website * Planet of the Apes (1974) article at Wikipedia * Planet of the Apes (1974) at the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) * Planet of the Apes (1974) at TV.com * Hunter's Planet of the Apes Scripts Archive References ---- Category:Planet of the Apes (TV Series)